With the economy in the gutter more and more people are looking to hop on their trusty bicycle and pedal to work. With this new trend  comes a surge in bicycle shop activity ultimately leading to an increase in bicycle shop marketing across the nation.

If you run a bike shop or own one yourself you are going to have to conduct some search engine marketing efforts to stand out in the crowd of competitors. If your bicycle shop is located in a metropolitan area chances are you have other competition competing for parking spaces in the same pages of search you are. Are you ready to fight back?

Here are some tips to help you market your bicycle shop:

Optimize Your Website

If you have a website and you haven’t yet optimized it for your localized keywords that is your starting point. If you want your website to appear for searchers looking for bicycle shops in your geographic area you have to implement the keywords through out the site in strategic areas that people are using to search. Hands down this should be at the top of your marketing to-do list. Search engine optimization will help you move around and appear when it is important.

Example:

Clean Things Up

If you haven’t touched your website in years chances are it needs to have it’s hair combed. The days of just having a website up regardless of how it looks are over. In today’s digital landscape it is all about user experience. Take some time and clean up the site to make sure the coding and design is up to date so your audience actually enjoys visiting it.

Get Social

Now is the time to get social if you haven’t already. Launch a Facebook page, Twitter account and even a YouTube profile and get cracking. Position these elements on the website and start using them to strike conversations with the locals regarding all topics relating bicycles. If you work on bikes as well try taking some short “how to” videos and post them on YouTube and even the website to hold the attention of searchers a bit longer with some YouTube marketing efforts.

Launch A Blog

Content marketing is an amazing way to strengthen the power of your brand and your website. Launch a blog on the website and start writing about topics related to the business and also the industry. Remember that it is your blog and you can write about anything you want.

Local SEO

Once you get your site cleaned up and fully optimized for search you are going to want to tackle the external marketing efforts like local business profiles, press releases, articles, etc… If you are new to the search engine marketing game this effort might confuse you a bit but once you understand how it all works you will quickly see the importance of building links to your website. Local link building will help you drive the power needed in order to get your site moving around and the brand of your bicycle shop building.